Pakistan Cricket Suffers Another Blow By BCCI

Operation Cleanup, etc.

This post is an agglomeration of thoughts and stories of the day. There was something unsual about today. It began differently and stimulated different regions of my brain that were dormant (huh!). I woke up late today, around 11 a.m. (near Zuhr time). This was a usual time of waking up in Karachi but probably my first here and that too because I ended up scratching my head over a snippet of code until 4 a.m. last night. I decided not to indulge in any academic stuff during the day and so I started with my Operation Cleanup.

The first step was to clean my laptop, physically. I ordered a cleaning kit off amazon last week to get rid of all the dirt that has accumulated on/in the keys and screen in the last 2 years! (Yeah, I never cleaned my laptop). With the laptop shining I couldn’t resist browsing and checking different blogs BTW, even the mouse touchpad feels good now! [I'm taking special care to wash my hands, dry them nicely before typing this]

Next, I sorted out my desktop issues. There was no space for any icon and this kinda triggered my urge to cleanup. I’m proud to say that the desktop is pristine now and I also removed extra stuff from the computer.

Then came the biggie, room ki safai. This is how it looked:

Slowly and begrudgingly, cursing myself for creating the mess, I collected the empty cans of red bulls and diet cokes, wrappers of maltesers, minstrels, mars and bounty, filed the rough papers which are usually ‘scattered in some organized way’ and breathed a sigh of relief when completed.

Next I threw the clothes in the laundrette, came back to the computer to check out the happenings in the politics. There is something going on about the CJP daughter’s marks and admission. Same old story!! Iftikhar Chaudhry got his son in something too. So did Nawaz Sharif, when he got his daughter in some medical college (link), and now he dares to speak for the same crime that he did. Surely, the judge should be kicked, and so should the others!

The clothes were clean and dry and I neatly stacked them completing the Operation Cleanup!

Then I had this chat with a friend:

Friend: Parhai set hai?? and teachers?

Me: haan, the teachers are great…wish i had some at undergrad too!

Freind: why don’t you get in to teaching when you are done?

Me: i dnt like teaching, uknw that and the other reasons too

Friend: then  you shouldn’t complain if you can’t help in improvement

Me: acha sai hai bhai…ghalti hogai

….and then i changed the topic

This got me in some serious thinking about considering teaching an option. After all, as Pakistanis we have to make an effort at least. But, I don’t know, this guy is weird! Does anyone agree with him??

I also got my NFAK collection back (downloaded again!) and I’m listening to one his songs, a live performance in India, and I haven’t changed the song for the past couple of hours.

After posting this, I think I might go back to some coding – its difficult to do it in the morning.

If anyone is wondering why I didn’t attend the university today it is because the classes are over! And the term shall end this week officially. But with all the courseworks and stuff, the vacations can be counted as an active part of the term.

Still wondering if I should resume the coursework or work on my new website :S

And I also made some decisions today:

1) I will make an effort to keep the room clean.

2) I will not have a haircut for the next few months and will resist all temptations of another haircut by that Portuguese girl.

3) I will buy Nikon D60 immediately after Christmas! (enough of waiting)

At the end, I will leave you with an interested link. Do read it, especially the programmers.

http://www.aegisub.net/2008/12/if-programming-languages-were-religions.html

Army-Government Confrontation

The armed forces of Pakistan and the democratic government spearheaded by Zardari may be on the same ground visibly but their actions reflect a completely contrasting and horrifying picture. With the international pressure mounting and extreme threats on most of Pakistan’s border, the need of the hour is a show of unity. Instead the differences are now out, open in air. Gilani and Kiyani may have repeatedly said that there are to differences, but the facts that I pen below proves just the opposite.

When the government took over and made an attempt to bring the ISI under interior ministry, the army used its iron hand to force the government to withdraw. Later came the lame excuses from the government. This was an extreme example of an attempt to gain the high ground by the government which failed.

When President Zardari rescinded his promise of first official visit to China and instead preferred a pilgrimage to the White House, the COAS (Kiyani) flew to China on the same day that Zardari went to USA and also stayed for an exactly same number of days (maybe one less, I can’t remember exactly now). This showed where the government’s inclination was in the developemnt of foreign policy while the army preferred an opposite track.

The defense minister claimed that Pakistan was incapable of hitting down the US drones. Immediately came out the Chief of Air Staff with an in-your-face response that the PAF is fully capable and waiting for a green signal from the government. Again, both parties were at odds.

President Zardari promised never to use the nukes first (changing the policy which the former President framed when he said that the nukes were not made to be shelved). This provoked a reaction not only from the establishment but also the nuclear scientist Dr. Samar Mubarakmand voiced his dissent against this policy. Not surprisingly, the army never agreed and this message was also forwarded to the presidency.

Immediately after the Mumbai attacks PM Gilani acceded to send the ISI chief to India. He was forced on the back foot, bringing shame to Pakistan, only to realize later what he had done (this couldn’t be unintentional). Later, the government tried to save face by claiming that any director-level rep of ISI would be sent and there was some lack of communication. Again, the ISI/army refused.

And now when the IAF jets violated Pakistani airspace, the PAF reacted strongly while the government seems apologetic saying it was an honest mistake. Who are they actually representing? Which side are they on?

It is this internal conflict that makes the enemies brave enough to attack a country. In this in-fight is suffering the sovereignity of Pakistan. If a choice has to be made between the current government and the army, even the harshest critics of army will be forced to reconsider.

Pakistan Zindabad!

Another TAG!

(Copy-paste starts here!)

Rules:

* IT’S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!
* TAG 10 PEOPLE INCLUDING THE ONE THAT SENT THIS TO YOU.
* USE THE 1ST LETTER OF YOUR NAME TO ANSWER EACH OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.
* THEY HAVE TO BE REAL PLACES, NAMES,THINGS. NOTHING MADE UP!
* TRY TO USE DIFFERENT ANSWERS IF THE PERSON WHO TAGGED YOU HAD THE SAME 1ST INITIAL.
* YOU CAN’T USE YOUR NAME FOR THE BOY/GIRL NAME QUESTION.

(Copy-paste ends here!)

SCATTERGORIES:

1. What is your name: Anas

2. A 4 Letter word: Army [sar pe sawaar hai]

3. A Boys Name: Abdullah

4. A Girls Name: Alina

5. An Occupation: Astronaut

6. A Color: Aqua

7. Something you wear: Armani Jeans

8. A Beverage: What starts with A?? Aquafina!

9. A Food: Afghani Chicken Karahi

10. Something found in the bathroom: I don’t know!! Hmmm…Aaina (mirror)? Mere bathroom mein hai

11. A place: Austria

12. A Reason for being late: Acedia [laziness]

13. Something you shout: A**hole!! [only one possibility here]

Ten tags!! Where do I find ten people? I currently have 11 on my blogroll. Since SAWJ tagged me, the other 10 can consider themselves tagged!

Weekend Nights

A weekend night is something we all yearn for over the whole week and the plans for such nights can be numerous varying from person to person but nothing trumps the fun of sitting late in the night with nice background music, sipping coffee/coke/red bull and eating doritos while trying to figure out a way to reduce 20ns latency in my program!!

Any programmer (software and hardware) can testify that the he loves to debug. It is tedious but then following the expected behaviour of the code and comparing it with the simulated results is something we can do when others are out there partying, and wasting time!

And that feeling of achievment when that little bug in a code of 2000 lines is found is incomparable to any other human emotion.

Although, as I said earlier, I’m heavily loaded with courseworks I’ve begun to enjoy it since I started working on it. Coding is always fun and when it doesn’t work, it takes away my sleep. Take an example, I was writing a code in VHDL last night which didn’t function in the first attempt (they never work in the first attempt!). I tried to figure out the bug for few minutes (at least 90) and then kept my laptop aside and went to sleep with the lights on. When I woke up in the morning, I glanced at the bedside, and within seconds I was back in the world of code looking for that bug. So the sleep didn’t matter at all.

Quite recently Saadia and Leena asked me what am I doing, so here is a glimpse.

Click here to see a  small part of the layout that I’ve made for an 8-bit adder, the complete layout is pretty big and nasty for general public view. (The other domain is mine too, the next project which I’m working on whenever I get some free time. And BTW, I will have yet another blog very soon hosted on Imperial College’s network because I have been selected as one of the 10 bloggers and all ten of us were given a nice Sony Cybershot, memory sticks and some other freebies ….More on this later!)

And below you can see some waveforms and binary digits which are the results of my VHDL simulation for interaction with a video RAM. Things are working quite nicely here but my output is taking 20ns more than it should. To those who don’t know, 20ns in digital world is like 20 minutes of real life!

So life is full of courseworks at the moment but it is fun and pleasant at the same time!

I’ll conclude by giving a snapshot of my current desktop which is a reflection of my life: disorganized! [My laziness and more use of Linux has also contributed to this]